


I Choose You

by Vivien



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 16:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17227610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivien/pseuds/Vivien
Summary: In the throne room, Rey proposes a counter offer.





	I Choose You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookykingdomstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/gifts).



“No, you’re still holding on!” Kylo yelled, his hand outstretched towards Rey as sparks and ashes rained down upon them.

A vacant, aching space swelled through her chest, the place where her heart felt ripped away. She glanced at the monitors, where her new friends flickered out of existence with each steady explosion.

Anger rushed in to fill the emptiness inside her.

“No,” she retorted, her brows furrowing. “ _ You’re _ the one still holding on. If you want the let the past die, if you truly want to let it all go, then let it go. Stop the attack, leave the First Order.”  She paused, as her mind spun a way out of this conflagration. A way out for both of them.

“Come with  _ me _ . Be my teacher. We don’t need the Jedi or the Sith path, but we need the Force. You said you would. You said I wasn’t alone.  _ Prove _ it.”

“I’m not going to the Resistance,” Kylo snarled, his hand clenching into a fist.

“No. I’ll let go, too, if you do. If you  _ can _ ,” she taunted, her eyebrow arching.

He stared at her, all dark eyes and fury, for a few moments before he tilted his head, confused. “You mean,” he began, “you’d go with me somewhere else? We’d- what? Run away?”

“From everything,” Rey said, nodding as she stepped closer to Kylo. 

Kylo’s gaze shifted to the corpse on the throne and then back to Rey. “This isn’t a trick,” he said, not asking a question, but confirming the reality he could sense coming from her in waves of newfound certainty.

She shook her head. “No, it isn’t a trick. Let them go. Let whatever happens happen. Without us.” She couldn’t believe the relief she felt as she said these words. She had made friends for the first time in her life, found people who cared for her. And she cared for them, too, but that caring was unfamiliar and frightening. This man should have been even more so, but he wasn’t. Whether it was their connection through the Force or something else, he felt like her only choice. Her only hope.

His eyes hadn’t left hers, and she maintained that intense contact, watching as he stepped aside, backing up towards the comm link in the arm of the throne.  “Cease the attack,” he commanded. “Pull the forces back to Beta-Zed-523.” He paused and when he spoke, his voice shook. “The Supreme Leader is dead.”

He stood there, stunned, for a moment.

“We should probably do the whole running away thing about now,” Rey said softly, wondering whether he actually would.

He didn’t respond. 

“Ben, please?” Tears slipped down her cheeks.

His head snapped up, his expression lost but his eyes finding hers. After a long silent moment, he stripped off his gloves, and then he reached out to her again, imploring her. She grabbed his bare hand with no hesitation, grasping it tightly. 

“Let’s go,” he said, his voice hushed. “There’s an emergency escape shuttle…”

Rey headed in the direction she knew it would be located, pulling him along with her. 

They were doing this.

And she was elated.

\----

She had brief second thoughts as they entered the cockpit of the sleek shuttle. Of course it was fancy; it had belonged to Snoke, as Ben explained. Finn, first and foremost, crossed her mind, and Leia and the rest of the Resistance who would be waiting for her beacon. And Chewie. Chewie would be waiting at their rendezvous point.

“I have one thing I need to do,” she said, sitting down in the co-pilot’s chair. Ben had hogged the pilot’s position. She’d let that slide for now.

“What?” He steered past the rubble of battle, avoiding the careening chunks of metal from the debris field of ruined ships.

“I have to go back to the Millenium Falcon.” She held up her hand at his wide-eyed expression of disbelief. “For just a moment,” she added, hurriedly. “To drop something with Chewie. It wouldn’t be fair to do otherwise.”

She didn’t offer what needed to be dropped off. She’d probably lie if he asked.  She didn’t fully trust the man beside her who was both Kylo Ren and Ben Solo. Not yet. 

“He tried to kill me,” Ben said dully, dragging his attention back to navigation.

“We don’t have to let him know we’re there.” She wouldn’t strand Chewie without his friends, even if she was willing to leave them all. She’d drop the beacon off so he could find Leia and the others. Find them, save them, fight with them, die with them - whatever  he chose.

“I don’t want him to know I’m there.” Ben’s voice was small, his brow furrowed.

“He won’t. I can leave without another goodbye.”

His eyes flicked to her and then back to the debris field. “Are we really doing this?”

“Yeah,” she exhaled. “I think we are.”

They remained silent as Rey entered the coordinates for the Falcon into the navicomputer. The silence continued as they jumped to hyperspace.

“Hux will take over,” Ben finally muttered, glancing at Rey from the corner of his eye.

“Your mother will hand him his arse,” Rey assured him.

The silence fell again.

“She’s- she’s alive, then? I didn’t- I didn’t think she could be.”

“She is,” Rey said, slightly baffled. “You can feel her, can’t you? I can.” Plus the beacon was still activated. Someone was out there. It felt like Leia, even if her signature was subdued.

“I thought I watched her die.” 

He turned to Rey. His eyes devoured her with the awed fascination he’d fixed upon her in the forest, during their first connection within the Force, in the throne room. “Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s- I think-” She gazed back at him, trying to find the right words. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“It’s really not a trick?” His expression closed off, his previous uncertainty gone. She was not the only one with second thoughts. He scowled and spit out,“You’re not leading me into a trap to save your friends?”

Rey didn’t respond immediately. She would tell him the truth or she would say nothing. After a few moments of heavy silence, she covered his hand - which had curled into a fist - with hers.

“No. It’s no trick. No trap. I choose you.”

The muscle under his left eye twitched and his hand flattened out to splay upon the control panel as her fingers fanned out to cover it.

“I do, too. I- No tricks from me. No traps. Only you.” 

She quirked a smile. “I wouldn’t be here if I thought there was a chance of that in your heart. I just knew there wasn’t.”

“What have we done, Rey?”

“We’ve started something new, Ben.” She turned in her seat to gaze upon the starfield, and slowly, so slowly, his hand turned over so his palm was pressed to hers. They grasped hands. The cockpit was silent but their hearts filled with unbound promises knitting them together within the Force. 


End file.
